Polycotylus

Post author:Adam S. Smith
Post published:10/04/2024
Post category:Genus page Polycotylidae

Reconstruction of an adult and a newborn baby Polycotylus. From O'Keefe and Chiappe (2011).

Polycotylus latipinnis was the first short-necked plesiosaur to be recognised in North America (Carpenter 1996), and the first polycotylid to be described and named (Cope 1869). It was established in the same volume that coined the name Elasmosaurus and contained the infamous ‘head on the wrong end’ reconstruction (Cope 1869). However, despite their equally long history, Polycotylus never achieved the...

Libonectes

Post author:Adam S. Smith
Post published:22/07/2018
Post category:Elasmosauridae Genus page Plesiosauria Plesiosauroidea

Libonectes was erected for ‘Elasmosaurus morgani’. The pectoral girdle and a forelimb of the holotype are figured (most recently by Welles 1962, fig. 12) but now lost (Carpenter 1999). Libonectes morgani (Welles 1949) is the type and only species. Type material of L. morgani (SMUSMP 69120) consists of a skull, cervical vertebrae and gastralia, from the Britton Formation, Eagle...